Will Connor Norby Break Out as a Budding Star for the Marlins?

I think that a lot of the baseball community has forgotten just how good Connor Norby is.

Norby made his major league debut last season for Baltimore before he was traded to Miami. He played 45 games and performed pretty well. However, before then, he was consistently one of the best bats in all of the minors.

Norby was a second-round pick out of East Carolina University by the Baltimore Orioles. Since then, all he has done is hit. He finished 2023 at #74 on the Just Baseball Top 100 prospects list. Regardless of that, he sat blocked in Baltimore for so long that he slipped into the back of a lot of fans’ minds.

With the trade to Miami, he was given some run and was able to establish himself. It was just 36 games for the Marlins, but it was a very promising stretch.

With Miami, Norby hit .247/.315/.445, which was good for a 108 wRC+. Couple that with seven home runs, all while learning and playing a new position. He is poised for a real breakout in 2025, and here is why.

Connor Norby’s Offensive Prowess

Connor Norby’s bat has always been his calling card. In the minors, he looked destined to be a bat-first second baseman. He certainly had the potential to be one of the better bats in the league at that position.

The Miami Marlins have since moved Norby to third base. They are going to be asking a bit more of him offensively at that position. Especially considering that his defense over there is not particularly good.

His offensive profile is unique. On the surface, if you were to pull up his Baseball Savant page, you might find yourself asking what makes him a breakout candidate. He doesn’t hit the ball that hard, his bat speed is average at best, and he struck out a lot. Yet, Norby has the skillset to overcome these drawbacks.

Launch

As I said before, if you go to Norby’s Savant page, you might be wondering what makes him a breakout candidate. You would also notice that two of the metrics on his card stand out. Those would be launch angle sweet spot percentage and barrel percentage.

Norby was not a qualified hitter last season, so you can’t see his percentile ranking amongst his peers. However, I can tell you that among players with over 100 batted ball events (BBE), Norby ranked 21st in barrels per BBE. That mark put him ahead of players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bobby Witt Jr., and Yordan Alvarez.

Launch angle sweet spot percentage just tells us how often a batter hit the ball between eight and 32 degrees. Between those two marks is where it is going to be easiest to pick up barrels.

Norby had the highest launch angle sweet spot percentage among all MLB hitters with at least 100 BBE: 47%. He finished ahead of Freddie Freeman by just under four percentage points.

If you are not going to hit the ball exceptionally hard, the next best thing to do is to hit the ball in the air consistently.

While Norby does pull the ball a fair amount (48.7% last season), his hit spray chart is interesting.

Of his nine home runs last season, two were pulled to straight away left and two were hit to left center. One was hit dead center, two more hit to right center, and two hit to straight away right. That is about as spread out as your home runs can get. He has a clear ability to hit with power to all fields.

This profile is going to play. It will allow Norby to maximize his offensive output coming into 2025. I wouldn’t be surprised if he flirts with 25, maybe even 30 home runs.

Cutting Down on Strikeouts

The one thing that is a little scary with Norby is the strikeouts and the lack of contact. He struck out 33% of the time during his MLB stint last year. That is significantly worse than any of his minor league seasons prior.

In 2021, Norby played just 33 games between the complex and Low-A. He walked 14.7% of the time and struck out 23.3% of the time.

In 2022, he would climb from High-A to Triple-A, where he would spend all of 2023. In those two seasons, he walked 10.1% and 9.0% of the time while striking out 20.8% and 21.6% of the time, respectively.

2024 was a different story. While in the minors, he walked 12% and struck out 28% of the time. Things only got worse in the majors. His strikeout rate jumped to a career worst 33%.

In the end, it is unlikely that Norby is a player that strikes out this much moving forward. Adjusting to major league pitching is one of the hardest things to do in sports. With a full season, Norby should be able to quell some of the strikeout concerns.

Hopefully, he can also improve upon a far-from-impressive zone contact rate of 73.5%. A lot of this comes down to just overall comfortability with major league pitching.

If Norby can turn these numbers around, we could see a real breakout in 2025. Hopefully, he shows that Miami has found an offensive cornerstone to build around.

Connor Norby’s 2025 Ceiling

Breakouts for MLB players can look quite different. Take Brenton Doyle, for example. He was one of the biggest breakouts of the 2024 season, finishing with a 3.7 fWAR. His breakout took the form of him becoming a league-average hitter while playing world-class defense in center field.

Then you have someone like Lawrence Butler. He posted a 130 wRC+ last season after putting up a mark of 59 in 2023. His offensive outburst solidified him as a budding star in the league.

I say all of this to say that young players establishing themselves can look very different. A breakout is also largely based on performance relative to expectations.

Steamer projections are available on FanGraphs for the 2025 season. Norby is currently projected to hit .243/.309/.399 with 18 home runs, amounting to a 95 wRC+. If he were really to hit like that, it would be hard to call it a breakout.

Obviously, projections are not perfect, and Norby has a great chance to out-perform tht Steamer projection.

I believe that a 115 wRC+ is certainly within reach for Norby. Couple that with 20-25 home runs, and we could be looking at a cornerstone for the Marlins moving forward.

As an organization in the position the Marlins are currently in, this team desperately needs a player like Norby to establish himself as a budding star in the league.